A Letter to a Cousin in France

Thank you for giving me news from the old country. Congratulations on your acquittal! To whom do you owe the favor of the court's providential misplacing of these evidence files? Wait, on second thought, don't answer that question.

As for me, I have been totally aboveboard since I immigrated to the United States. As you remember, I left our profitable little organization because I was sick and tired of helping politicians pluck the country like a gullible goose. I wanted to leave behind the dirtiness, the lies, the posing.

I came to the US with some reverence, and, dare I say, a bit of awe. Yes, laugh me up. Nevertheless, you have to admit that the US was founded on principle and deeds quite above the bloody chaos that gave birth to many European republics. Take France, where people still think so highly of themselves in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary. Its line of absolutist kings was toppled by a demented slaughter calling itself a revolution, which gave birth to an emperor, more kings, another emperor, and a series of unsteady, depraved governments. Compare the rabid, bloodthirsty revolutionaries of Paris with the thinkers who authored the Federalist Papers — look it up online. It's obvious that the depth of thought that went into America's founding principles has few equivalents in Europe.

Not that we didn't have our moments of fun back in the old country. Remember when that guy wanted to found an anti-corruption opposition party? How we were called to handle it? I supervised the state's "security interventions" to cut power to the buildings the guy rented for his conventions, and you manufactured the rioting protests that destroyed the cars of the attendees while the national police watched. After a few weeks, nobody dared to attend the guy’s speeches. Good times, good times. And well-paid, too.

But it was becoming as painful as watching a pit bull ripping a kitten to shreds — over and over again. So I left home. I left the grime, the dishonesty, the corruption, and I started an honest business in this still mostly honest country. All these years, you told me, "You just wait." I didn't want to believe you.

But you were right, damn your cynical hide.

You probably have not heard of it — hell, even the American media barely mentioned it. But it started. The rot is taking hold. We — the USA, I mean — are becoming just like the old country.

It always starts when politicians get government employees to persecute their opponents. I'm not talking about finding dirt on the challenger in an election No, I'm talking about using the tax system to harass and suppress political opponents. I know, this is old news in France or Italy, but here, it was unheard of.

Yet that's exactly what Obama's IRS just did. The Federal tax administration singled out constitutional-government organizations and used tactics that I'm sure you'll find interesting: intimidation, extreme indiscretion, dereliction of duty, abnormal delays, and plain harassment. For example, the IRS (that’s what the tax outfit is called) was asking Tea Party chapters to provide the full biographies of all the officer's family members, their plans, their income past, present, and future, the works! They also wanted the news clippings that mentioned them, information about future meetings during the next two years, financial information on officers and their families. Better, they planned to make all that information publicly available! This, in a country where a Social Security number is enough to open a line of credit. And this abuse went on for years.

It’s so gross that even the leftist MSNBC television channel mentioned it. To give you context, this is a channel on which anchors interviewing leftists ask for their autographs. On the air.

Of course, the IRS pretends that this is all a regrettable mistake made by lowly clerks at a single IRS center in Cincinnati, that it was nothing political. That's a lie, obviously: discrimination against opponents was dished out by several IRS offices. And the IRS announced that there will not be a single slap on the wrist to punish this unbelievable abuse, which confirms that it was an operation led from the top.

This shattered my illusions about this country, and with them, my hopes for a republic as a form of government that could succeed somewhere. Yes, Gérard, I am naive. I am glad I am telling you this in writing. It will save me the trouble of slapping that annoying smirk off your face.

Which brings me to a business proposal. Obviously, the US is ripe for the next step. They have these amateurs in the Chicago "machine" that do more or less the same job as you, but lack the polish, the experience that you can bring to your operations. Why don't you open your "political consultancy cabinet" here? I'll help you, as I did in the past, for the same percentage. You will find it appetizing: a country of 300 million wide-eyed yokels, most of whom still believe what the media tell them.

Oh, and don't bother with a work visa. I heard they're going to have a big amnesty anyway.

Reluctantly yours,
Cousin Jacques

About this AuthorFred Mora is a software engineer who left the Titanic of his native European country to hop on the Hindenburg of Obamanonics. He lives in Connecticut with his lovely wife and kids.